Piggybacking off the popularity of Crave’s new hit hockey show, Heated Rivalry, doesn’t make the NHL any less homophobic.
Since its Nov. 28 release on Crave, Heated Rivalry has gone mega viral. People all over the world fell in love with the show and waited in great anticipation for a new episode each week. Even now that the show’s first season has concluded and is no longer airing regularly, the popularity of Heated Rivalry has still not fully petered off.
Yet, as the whirlwind of chaos surrounding the series has only started to settle down, controversy has begun to emerge.
Heated Rivalry follows two hockey players, Ilya and Shane, who are playing on two fictional NHL teams. Their stories explore love, loss and the immense fear that surrounds coming out as queer in their own regimented and rather homophobic worlds. While this fear manifested because of various reasons for both men, the societal expectations and acceptances created by being professional hockey players takes centre stage in the narrative.
The NHL, and much of the professional and semi-professional hockey world, has been viewed as homophobic for quite a long time. In the league’s 108-year long history, they have never included an openly gay player, and even though the NHL hosts yearly Pride nights, a recent social media poll voted the league as being the most anti-LGBTQ+ out of the “Big Four” of men’s sports.
Although the NHL had a few years during which inclusion was heavily pushed, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and his higher ups have since turned that all around. This started when Bettman, alongside a few other athletes, refused to wear a rainbow jersey for 20 minutes during warm-ups in early 2023.
“You know what our goals, our values and our intentions are across the league, whether it’s at the league level or at the club level. But we also have to respect individual choice […] and part of being diverse and welcoming,” the commissioner said of players who wouldn’t put on a Pride jersey, “is understanding those differences.”
This is the first time in modern history that a pro-sports league commissioner in North America has ever told their fans that they should simply accept homophobia as being a “difference.” As if said “difference” hasn’t resulted in violence, terror and death for queer people all around the world for all of time.
Bettman even went on to ban Pride jerseys and even Pride tape on players’ sticks (although the league would mostly roll back this ban later on).
This is only just a part of the anti-queer agenda that surrounds men’s hockey culture, which is known for its blatant homophobia. Brock McGillis, one of the first professional male hockey players to come out as gay following his career, stated that “there’s a homophobic slur or some type of slur said every time a team enters a locker room.”
This is not just something that happens in locker rooms though. In 2016, Andrew Shaw was caught using a gay slur in an NHL playoff game and faced suspension. A year later, Ryan Getzlaf also used a slur during a playoff game and received a much less severe punishment: a meager $10,000 fine.
In 2026, NHL teams still host Pride nights and donate some proceeds from Pride-specific clothing items like t-shirts or jerseys to charity, but this doesn’t mean that the league is any less homophobic than they ever were.
This is why the league’s use of Heated Rivalry as an advertising method is so shocking.
Various different teams have used clips from the show in their social media posts, with some even broadcasting scenes or iconic music from the show on their jumbotron during games. Just recently, the Ottawa Senators sold Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov jerseys in their store, with part of the proceeds going to Ottawa Pride Hockey.
But this doesn’t mean that the NHL has changed. In fact, many believe that the use of Heated Rivalry is mostly performative to bring in more fans, and with them, more money,
François Arnaud, who played Scott Hunter in the show, pointed out the irony of the NHL’s use of the show as a promotion method.
“If you’re going to use our name, back it up with real life shit,” Arnaud said.
Arnaud is right.
It is a slap in the face for queer fans all around the world to witness the NHL use gay media as a promotion method but not accept gay people within their ranks. By continuing to allow the culture of men’s hockey to be one of hate and homophobia, the NHL will only ever be seen as hypocrites who are okay with queer-directed violence.